


We Exist In Parallel (But We're Not The Same)

by Solena2



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (Because Exile), (at least i think so), Alternate Universe, Clay | Dream Is Tommyinnit From The Future, Gen, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, POV Third Person, POV TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Rated Teen For Implied Character Death, Time Travel, Tommy Goes Off, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solena2/pseuds/Solena2
Summary: Dream removes his mask when Tommy has him put his stuff in the hole, and it's Tommy's own face staring back at him.It doesn't change things as much as Dream seems to expect it to.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 146





	We Exist In Parallel (But We're Not The Same)

**Author's Note:**

> Working title for this was "Dream Face Reveal NOT Pog"

Dream is everything Tommy refuses to become.

He’s seen so much more of him, so much more of what he’s made himself than any other member of the SMP.

He knows Dream’s quirks, knows his ticks and unconscious gestures and nervous habits he never managed to break, and it hurts because Tommy has so many of the same.

He’s not sure why, to be honest.

He suspects it might be a kind of influence, all the time he’s spent around the bastard creating a distorted reflection of that famous smiling mask.

Or maybe it’s just coincidence, just two people similar in only the most ironic ways, echoed in all the least comfortable places.

Dream hates it too, he knows. When Tommy reaches a hand up to scratch his chin the same way he might if most of his face were covered, when he takes up a battle stance built for agility rather than the bashing Techno’d taught him…

He knows Dream, yeah? He knows what a flinch looks like from him.

Especially when they flinch the same way.

But they aren’t the same, no. Couldn’t be less similar, in a lot of ways.

Tommy stakes everything he has on his ability to care, Dream throws it all away for just one iota more control. Dream gives someone a gift and expects them to pay it back, Tommy gives someone a gift and expects them to dismiss it.

Tommy sacrifices everything he has for his friends, Dream sacrifices his friends to keep his power.

Fucking funhouse mirrors, they are.

So Tommy knows him and Dream are a lot alike, yeah? He’s uncomfortably fucking aware.

That doesn’t mean he’d ever have predicted this, though.

Because who would, right? Who could?

Tommy points his axe at Dream and tells him to put his stuff in the hole and it’s a triumphant moment because finally, finally, he’s got an assured win.

He’s got his friends at his back, Tubbo safe and sound, the discs away from Dream, and there’s nothing left to hit him with, nothing left that could destroy this perfect victory over the one who’s tormented them all so long.

Dream leaves some of his stuff on, so Tommy tells him no, all of it, and Dream complies and something about the action feels off and Tommy doesn’t figure out what it is until Dream’s taken everything off and has his hand in the claps of his mask, saying,

“Are you sure?” With that horrible false sympathy he specializes in, and Tommy says

“Yes, I’m fucking sure, or I wouldn’t have said it! Unless you’re that fucking ugly, why’s it even matter?” And oh, how he eats those words.

Because Dream just laughs, undoes the clasp, pulls his mask away from his face as gently as you tell your child _Santa is only a story_ , and his face-

He’s got Tommy’s face.

He-

They could be twins, if not for the scars on Tommy Dream put there himself.

“Wh- The fuck? You ‘sposed to be my long lost brother or some shit?” And he says it sarcastically, but he’s only half joking.

Dream laughs again, like it’s all some fucking joke only he’s privy to.

“Oh, Tommy, that would be fun, wouldn’t it? I think Phil might have mentioned it, though,” And Dream tilts his head to the side, and it’s such a damn cold expression, not an ounce of fucks given, like he doesn’t even care and the worst part of it, Tommy thinks, is that he knows Dream _does_ care, in his own fucked up way, and he does all this shit anyway.

“No, I’m not your brother.” And what the fuck does that mean, anyway? Vague ass answer, just so the fucker can drag the conversation out a little longer, just another fucking power play and Tommy is so _tired_ of it all.

So he doesn’t play Dream’s game.

“Look, asshole, I don’t give a shit if you’re my evil twin or whatever. It doesn’t change shit, yeah? You still suck and the server would still be better off without you in it, so spill or don’t but do it fast because I’ve had it up to _here_ with your shit.”

And Dream looks surprised, for a moment, the calculated shock looking utterly foreign on Tommy’s face, before he wipes it away and smiles in a way that looks perfectly at home on his face because that’s _Tommy’s_ smile, and he says,

“I thought it would be obvious, Tommy. I named all my armor and weapons _Nightmare_ , of all things,” and Tommy doesn’t know where Dream is going with this but he hates it already and Dream continues “I figured calling everything Clementine would be too much of a giveaway, but maybe I should have just gone for it, if you’re going to be this oblivious,” And the pieces are fitting together in Tommy’s head but the picture they create makes no goddamn _sense_ , the hell-?

“What are implying here, Dream?” It’s Tubbo who says it, voice still ringing with the blankness it’d held when he’d told Tommy _this is checkmate, I suggest you resign_ -

“Well, the future is a dark place, you know? Just ask Karl. Shit sucks, so I left,” and he’s saying words and they aren’t really registering because he’s changed his accent just a bit, pitched his voice two centimeters to the left and altered his vocabulary and when he says that sentence Tommy nearly feels for his own throat to make sure he hadn’t said the words himself.

And just-

What. The fuck.

“Fuck this.” Tommy says in one of the deadest tones he’s ever mustered, and he raises the Axe of Peace over his head because this doesn’t _change_ anything, not really.

“Aw, Tommy, you wouldn’t kill _yourself_ , would you?” And here’s where Tommy sees the situation for truth, sees the utter fucking lack of comprehension in Dream’s (his) eyes, and he just,

Tommy just _laughs_. 

“ _Wouldn’t_ I, Dream?” And Dream flinches.

“Because I’m pretty fucking certain that I _tried_ , several times,” and there’s a soft gasp behind him he can’t identify but it doesn’t matter because he is at his _wits end_.  
“I’m pretty fucking sure I stood at the edge of a lava pit and tried to jump, and you pulled me back and said it wasn’t my time yet, and that makes so much more sense now because you really can’t grasp your own goddamn mortality, can you?”

He lowers the axe, but his grip doesn’t loosen.

“I also remember the time after you blew up Logstedshire, left everything me and Ghostbur’d built as a fucking burning ruin, I remember kinda _fucking_ clearly when I towered up until I could see past what you’d done to me and only landed in water by _chance_ ,” And his hand on the axe hurts but he needs the grounding it provides because these memories aren’t painless.

“And that’s not- That’s not even mentioning all the times I woke up breathing seawater and I’m still not sure whether you fucked with my bed somehow or whether I just wanted it all to _end_ that goddamn much, but you say I wouldn’t _kill myself_?” He feels like he can’t get enough air, the recollection of the sea in his lungs hitting almost as hard as Dream had, all those times.

“Don’t fucking pretend you’re _me_. I don’t know if you’re telling the truth, to be honest I don’t really care, but either way you’re _not_ me and you never will be,” 

Dream takes a step back, hitting the blackstone wall he built himself, and there’s something poetic in that, but Wilbur is dead to Dream’s machinations and Tommy doesn’t have any fucks left to give.

“Because you know the difference between us, Dream?”

Dream looks at him, two inches taller than Tommy, five years older, and not an ounce of wisdom to show for it. Dream is taller but he’s not the one looming here, not the one who holds the scene in his hands and shapes it how he sees fit, and Tommy knows now the real reason Dream always wears a mask, because he’s doing nothing to hide the fear in his face.

“What’s the difference?” He asks, and Tommy knows in an instant that Dream really, genuinely has no clue where he went so wrong.

“I care.” Tommy says, and swings the axe.

**Author's Note:**

> Dream wearing a mask all the time is practically asking for an AU like this.


End file.
